Topic: What to do about people who believe that stealing is ok - page 5. (Read 1105 times)

"In a universe full of planets and energy"

What are you on about?  We live on Earth and can't survive 1 second without it's resources.  The rest of the universe is completely irrelevant.
I'm not asking you what the law is or how it works.  No one asked about gun laws or self defense laws.  I think everyone here knows those things and its a distraction from the topic at hand.  I'm asking you to be an ethical thinker, not a lawyer. If there is no situation in which you would ever disagree with the law, then just say that.  

Conveniently, you chose to talk about the one piece of property police keep record of, but what about everything else?  What if you can't provide proof that it is your property to the police but you know that it is your property?  Do you still consider this stealing?  

I hope you also realize that redistribution of wealth is also often done through legal means.  By your logic, this is not stealing because if the government taxes me, I cannot call the government and tell them that the tax money belongs to me and have them return it.  If a government were to raise taxes to 100% or legalize slavery, it doesn't seem to me like you would consider it theft because it would be legal.  

I haven't said anything about the system you lived under.  I think everyone agrees that a system that does as you have described is an awful system.  

I've never read or met anyone who thinks all humans are the same, like ants, or should all have the same outcome from their lives.  Its a tired, lazy strawman. The kind I would expect from tecshare.  If being illiterate was someone's choice then fine, but have you ever stopped to wonder if a huge majority of the illiterate people have not simply chosen to be illiterate because they are lazy?  Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe (just maybe) many of these people are illiterate because they did not have proper access to education?  Most rich people were born rich and most poor people were born poor.  That has very little to do with the fact that people are different, have different potentials, and can be lazy.  

The lazy child of a billionaire is much more likely to succeed than a child born to poverty in a war-torn area during a famine.  Your life is set on a certain track before the age of 5.

If you just take your car, the guy will call the police, you will be arrested then if you will be able to prove that it was your car, you will not be charged.  The guy who bought the car was defrauded, police will investigate and eventually will get to the thief.  It is not a good idea to take law into your own hands and go out and take your stolen stuff.  Just call the police, tell them that you located your stolen car and let them handle it.  That is why we pay taxes.  Let the police do their job.

Then you would be breaking the law.  The guy who bought your stolen car can shoot you in the head and he probably would not be charged, depending on the jurisdiction. Go through the proper legal channels.  That is why we have laws.  It is not a Wild West anymore.

If you just go out and take your stuff, you know that you will be arrested and if you resist, police can shoot you, either way, you end up either dead or in jail.  There is where all criminals belong, IMHO.

BTW, redistribution of wealth accomplishes nothing, it creates a short-term relief for the unfortunate and/or lazy and poor, then the class structure forms again, and the wealth pyramid is rebuilt again.  Capital is wasted.  Time is lost.  Millions die in the process. What forms during such revolutionary periods is much worse than what was there before.  Study French and Bolshevik revolutions.  Be careful what you wish for.

I have lived under the Communist regime.  I know better than you what that system does to your psyche, your motivation, your ambitions.  That system kills all innovation, desire to improve your life, it is the most destructive system human mind ever invented.

I do understand why you are fooled by the slogans.  You want equality, fairness, equal chances for everyone.  Those are great goals.  But you are forgetting about one thing.  Humans are not all the same.  We are not ants.  We all have different skills, abilities, ambitions, and aspirations.

Some of us worked hard to learn to speak 8+ languages fluently, have multiple graduate degrees, achieved great success in business and accumulated some wealth as a result.  While others can barely speak and write in their own native language, have no post-secondary education, skill or trade, and on top of that are lazy and want to take stuff from the "rich" people.  How is it fair for the "rich" people to be robbed by the imbeciles? Just think about what you are proposing.  Think about the long-term consequences.  Study history.  Don't ignore it.

a. is irrelevant. Nothing in this whole universe can be equal to another thing nor should it be desirable.
b. public property should not exist. You would think that with the tragedy of the commons playing itself out over and over and over people would realize that shared resources are just about the worst way to deal with resources.

The brainwashing by the public schools can likely be held accountable for the continuance of such a failed system. But of course, you can't blame them for trying to perpetuate their own inadequacy.

In a universe full of planets and energy, I think you are wasting time believing that someone can "take everything".

For anybody who thinks stealing is okay...

We need to make a strict law that if anyone steals something and gets away with it, that if he trades it for something else... MANDATORY EXECUTION.

This means that if a person embezzels some money, he can't use it to pay for something that he wants to buy. He can't use it to pay his servants if he is rich. He has to keep it. Mandatory execution if he is caught transferring it to someone else in any way.

You brought up laws and legal definitions of crime which is why I brought up slavery.  I'm talking about stealing while you are talking about laws and crime.  Slavery was a form of legal theft and slaves were private property within the law.  I used that to point out your appeal to authority fallacy which assumes all theft is illegal and anything legal cannot be theft.   It seems like you are saying slavery is not theft as long as it is legal.

We agree that retrieving stolen property from a thief is fine but what if the thief had already sold your property and you're taking it back from someone who purchased it? This is a realistic scenario because thieves usually look to move stolen goods as quickly as possible.  Is that stealing?

As for the bold part, I have made clear that taking stolen items is not necessarily stealing but can be.  We are in agreement that taking your car back from someone who stole it is not stealing but what if it was illegal? What if they had it registered in their name already?  You are confusing yourself by letting the law be your moral compass and not separating the law from what you actually believe stealing is.  

Laws vary over time and place but your own morals should not.

You have several options

a.  Push for a society where everyone has equal opportunity to obtain private property
b. Push for an adequate amount of public property that serves as an alternative to private property and can still meet the needs of those who do not believe in private property
c. Brainwash the masses into thinking you have a or b.

but there is no scenario where you can just take everything, leave the masses with nothing, and not expect them to come for your head.

Corruption exists in every form of government regardless of economic system.  We agree that power leads to more corruption and that all forms of totalitarian governments generate theft which is bad so there is no debate on this here.  

If you want to debate about the various ways communism could be implemented, make another topic and I'd be glad to discuss it with you but this is not the place for that and I won't let you drag me off-topic.

No.
You are off-topic.  Freeing slaves was not the topic of this discussion.  Replace slaves with necklaces.

Anyway, I am going to try one last time to give you an example to illustrate your logical fallacies.

Imagine you own a car. (Since you are a Communist so it is probably hard to imagine, but try.)

Your car is stolen.  You locate the thief and go to take your car back.  Did you steal your car?  No, you just took possession of your own property.

Now, if another guy goes and steals your car (from the thief), he would be stealing, because he is taking what is not his.

You think that taking illegal possession of the stolen property is not stealing.  

You have some serious issues understanding the English language and the Western legal system in general.

Stealing is not a boolean variable.  Stealing what is already stolen does not make it not stolen.

A=true (not stolen)
Not A = false (stolen)
Not Not A = true (not stolen)

That is your logical fallacy.  I think you do that on purpose because you want to justify stealing and redistribution of wealth.

You and people like you are the scum of this Earth.  

Well, you (communists/people who do not respect private property/etc.) fall into the reason for the original question. What do we (as individuals) do about preventing those who do not believe in private property taking our property.

I respect that communists think differently and I do not believe that any social structure can exist by requiring everyone to adhere to a specific ideology. Thus the reason why someone who respects private property must be personally responsible for protecting those rights.

This, I believe, may come down to upgrading our ways of protecting property via technology (autonomous drones, blockchain reputation system, tracking devices, etc.).

No, I do not believe every person should be a bread maker but if you have the unlimited power of a Dyson Sphere you should not be worrying about 10 people remaining and only 10 loaves of bread. Through technology all of the needs (and wants) of individuals can be obtained in this vast universe if only those who value equality over progress would get out of our way and let humanity move forward (each according to his own desires).

Once we can individually protect our own private property through more advanced technology (such as being able to hold your private Bitcoin keys in your head), then the state will no longer be able to steal as easily as it currently does.

That's an incredibly complex subject for a "civilized westerner" like me. You're describing something I can barely imagine xD

But I'd like to add that it's not just for theft.
In fact you can easily see that our low crime rate isn't thanks to the police, it's thanks to the fact that nearly everyone respects the law by default.

I'm not sure I'm being clear, but I already got the feeling that in other cultures, if you have a problem in front of you you deal with it and end of the story. Someone is bothering you in the street? You kick the shit out of him. Someone disturbs you because he's talking loud, you intimidate him and maybe kick him few times.

Most nations have a very... Primitive and savage culture.
This can be seen easily in immigrant population in Western countries. I've been attacked a few times in my life and that always has been by black/arab foreigners.
And the worse is that they didn't seem crazy or anything. It was normal for them to escalate to the physical conflict quickly. While we are used to respect each others so much than them.

Anyone saying it's easy to live with other cultures has never tried it...
So yeah I agree with you Elwar, either you enforce your laws quite strongly, maybe giving to your population the means to do it, either you separate cultures.

What you mean is that corruption in government results into people stealing each other because government is showing the bad example?
Do you have any fact on this or is it just your impression?
Which would be fine btw, just interested if you have figures on this

Yes, yes, real Communism hasn't been tried before, some how you are going to take people's property by force to redistribute without the state, and all the horrible things that result anytime any one tries to implement Communism isn't a result of Communist ideology. This is very much on topic. As I said in my first reply to the OP, government corruption is one of the primary drivers behind creating a low trust society where people  justify stealing as a result of the government never being held responsible under the law.

Communism creates more government corruption arguably than any other form of government, even open dictatorships, because it occupies the ideology of revolution and fighting for the people while actually being a totalitarian dictatorship. At least with open dictators everyone knows what they are getting.

My position has been misrepresented.
Do you think bank robbers should be able to keep the money if they are caught?

By my logic, stealing slaves from slave owners and setting them free (return to their rightful owner) is not a crime.   Harrriet Tubman did not steal slaves but I'm sure the slave owners felt that way. 

I'm fine with euthanasia in cases where people are suffering, have to be actively kept alive, and consent to being left to die (unplugged).
You are off-topic.  This isn't about what you think communism means or if it was responsible for those deaths.  Its about stealing and we can agree that all those totalitarian states stole from the people because by my logic, they kept more than their fair share. 

My moral compass is fine.  You conveniently removed my reply about buying stolen goods.  I said it was not a good idea.

You, on the other hand, think that stealing from a citizen who committed a crime (of stealing) is not stealing.

So when one gang takes stuff from the other, it is not stealing, so I guess no need to involve the police, lol.

BTW, by your logic, stealing slaves from another slave owner is not stealing.  So stealing African Blacks from Arab slave owners was not stealing. Do you see the logical mistake you are making?  I guess if you trade slaves you would not see the difference.

If you take stuff from someone else, you steal.  It does matter what the "stuff" is, what matters is YOUR ACTIONS.

You think like a criminal and you just want to justify your criminal acts.

It is like saying, "I murdered this old lady, but it is not a murder, because she was old and I just did her a favor.". LOL.

Just because someone stole something, it does not mean you can be justified to steal.  People commit all kinds of crimes, it does not mean we should be following and doing the same.

Cool story bro. Unfortunately an oppressive centralized totalitarian state is required to roll out Communism. There is no way around it, otherwise it would just be called charity. This is where you try to tell me Communism has never existed, and I tell you how it just so happens to kill millions every time it is tried.

Nice strawman.  As a communist, i don't believe in having a state at all. 

As long as the fruits of peoples labor is taken by the state for "redistribution" though, that is not slavery right? After all the only way to create the Communist utopia of equality is to make everyone equally enslaved and impoverished. You aren't one to talk about a broken moral compass Captain Postmodern.

Interesting opinion.  To me it sounds a lot like you are describing the US government.
By your logic, having slaves was not stealing as long as you bought the slaves and slavery was not yet outlawed.  Your moral compass is broken. 

You are a Communist. Communism inherently supports government sponsored theft. They not only steal your property, but your mind, your spirit, and your pride. I don't really care what twisted Postmodernist relativist logic you use to justify it, Communism is theft.

Stealing, in general is bad. Especially if it is done in a way that hurts another person. I don't participate in any scams and I value my integrity but I also don't judge anyone that has found a way to pilfer some money from large corporations or banks. I wish I had the balls to and skill to grab a few million from Chase banks or the like but I would never be able to do it. I'm too paranoid.

I think you have it backwards.  I believe in specialization.   Not everyone should be a breadmaker.  That would be a boring society.   We need artists and historians and everything else. 

For this reason, you and I have completely different ideas about what is stealing and what is not. This means end up I wondering why you think stealing is ok and you end up wondering why I think stealing is ok when no one actually think taking something that rightfully belongs to someone else is ok.   I'm just trying to address the topic.

Until there is one Dyson Sphere and a full galaxy for each human in the universe, I don't believe we need to worry about resources per person. And if you still cannot produce a loaf of bread with nearly limitless energy and a full galaxy at your disposal then it is likely best that you not eat anything at all and do a solid for humans as a species.

This from Woodrow Wilson under who's watch we got the so-called 'Federal' reserve, and who also got us into 'The Great War.'  You know; the one which resulted implementation of the Balfore Declaration and the 'return' of the so-called 'Jews' to the so-called 'promised land.'


Logic kind of implies that Wilson's friends were referring to the international banking cartel and the relatively few people who operate them.  It's getting illegal here in the U.S. to imply that, say, the Rothschild dynasty might have anything to do with international banking so I guess we'll never know.  Oh well .